Description of problem or question:
Recently, I have been using Handbake 1.3.1 with the Fast 1080p30 and Fast 720p30 presets to encode video produced in Final Cut Pro X 10.4.8. The Master File videos exported by Final Cut Pro X have been either 1080p or 720p. I'm not aiming for anything special, and I would be happy to use the presets with no modification, if they would work. I have found that the default settings of Automatic Cropping and Anamorphic 'Auto' fail 100% of the time to encode usable video, on my videos. In every case, the default settings crop out significant, important parts of my video, in the video output file that Handbrake creates.

After searching and testing, to get usable video output from Handbrake, I have found it necessary to switch to Custom Cropping, set all crop values to zero, and then change Anamorphic Auto to Off. I've read in the documentation that Loose and Auto are the best settings, but neither of them give me video output with the full width and height of my video material. I also find it curious that although the Loose and Auto settings show the 'Keep Aspect Ratio' box checked and greyed out (unchangeable), the aspect ratio of the 'Display Size' is often different from the aspect ratio of the 'Storage Size'. For example, right now I have Anamorphic set to Auto. The Storage Size is shown as 1280 x 720. The Display Size says 1267 x 720.

I have never used anamorphic video. Until I do, is there any reason for me to use the Auto or Loose settings?

I assume that the default settings are the best for most people doing normal encodings, which is my situation. Is there something I am doing wrong, which causes the problems that I am experiencing? Or should I just get used to changing all of these default settings for every one of my videos? Would it make sense to create a custom preset and try to store the changes to the standard default settings that I have found necessary?

Steps to reproduce the problem (If Applicable):
With each video that I have tried, the problem appeared on launching Handbrake, opening the source video file, and selecting one of the two presets mentioned above. I found the same problem with a few other presets, but I didn't investigate them carefully.

HB is finding substantial black or grey bars on your video in its sampling. You can increase the number of samples in preferences to see if that works better, or you can set cropping to 0 instead of using automatic cropping and save that in a preset for use with these files.